Cardiff School of History, Archaeology and Religion

China 1919-2000: Political and Social History - 20 credits (HST885)

The unit examines issues of modernity, nationalism, state-building, imperialism, and revolution in China. It seeks explanations for the failure of republican nationalists to survive the social and political challenges mounted against them from the left. It lays particular emphasis on the way in which new contexts in China reshaped modern ideologies forged principally in Europe, and on the contributions made in China. It explores the origins of China’s Nationalist and Communist revolution, both in China and the world, and the causes and consequences of the Chinese Communists’ rise to power. It lays particular emphasis on the way in which new contexts in China reshaped modern ideologies forged principally in Europe, and on the contributions made by Chinese revolutionaries to the revolutionary world movement in the twentieth century.